U.S. rethinks airline passenger screening plan
CAPPS II was to gather personal data; alternative program a priority
From Laura Bernardini
CNN Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A federal plan to collect personal data about airline passengers to block potential terrorists from boarding aircraft has been abandoned, a government source familiar with its development said Thursday.
Privacy advocates had opposed the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System -- or CAPPS II -- because it would have required the airlines to share a passenger's full name, home address, home telephone number, birth date and some information about that passenger's itinerary with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
That information would have been checked against commercial data bases to verify the person's identity or whether an alias was being used.
Thus far, $40 million dollars of the appropriated $100 million has been spent on the development of CAPPS II, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
The department is developing an alternate method to screen passengers. Calling the new program a "high priority for the department," the department is "reconfiguring the way in which the system works," according to Brian Roehrkasse, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security.
The new system, which is in development, would check passengers' names and additional information against a significantly expanded terrorist watch-list.
No date has been set for implementation of a new plan.
USA Today, which first reported the story, quoted Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge citing privacy concerns as a key reason to go in a different direction. Privacy advocates had stringently opposed the program, saying it was overly intrusive, unworkable and had few guarantees that passengers' privacy would be protected.
Under CAPPS II, a person's identity would have been verified and the name run through federal law enforcement data bases to see if the traveler was a known or suspected terrorist or had been convicted of a felony.
All passengers would have received a number and a color code. Those designated as "red" would have been prohibited from flying. "Yellow" coded passengers would have faced secondary screening, similar to that now given to some passengers, and "green" passengers would have been allowed to fly.
Government officials had said they were trying to reduce the backlog in airport lines caused by additional passenger screening.
CAPPS II would have followed on the heels of the current CAPPS system, which singles out some passengers for additional scrutiny because of certain factors -- such as whether they paid cash for their tickets, or purchased one-way tickets.
Because the CAPPS criteria are so well-known, Transportation Security Administration officials acknowledge terrorists can easily circumvent the system.
CNN's Mike Ahlers contributed to this report.
